This music from Secrets Beneath the Floorboards walks a fine line with respect to tone. In the corresponding scene, a would-be entrepreneur confesses his failures and opens up to our protagonist. It’s a moment of bonding — but at the same time we’re not entirely sure how we feel about this guy.

My approach was a piece for the lower string instruments, small-scale rather than cushily symphonic, blending pathos with a bit of darkness and ambiguity.

Apart from the music below, there’s a bit of bonus content this week: a short blog post with my thoughts about new AI technologies and music.

Music can sometimes cross the threshold into sound design, its effect coming less from melody and more from the impact of raw sonic timbre. In these cases I let the intellectual side of the creative process take a breather, and hand the reins to intuition and association.

This dream-sequence cue from Secrets Beneath the Floorboards isn’t something you’re going to hum afterwards (unless you have truly complex vocal abilities), but may convey the scene’s unsettling, jarring atmosphere.

This music from Secrets Beneath the Floorboards serves as a signature leitmotif for the film’s comic relief character, who has a harmless crush on the protagonist.

In addition to creating a lighthearted mood, the music needed to clearly differentiate Renaldo from the love interest character, who had a visually similar look. (Sometimes score can play this kind of subtle informational role.) I decided that marimba would be perfect for both purposes.

In this cue from Lifetime’s Secrets Beneath the Floorboards, our protagonist sorts through relics of a childhood with her harsh Oma (a German term for grandmother). 

I wove Oma’s theme throughout the score, sometimes to overtly evoke her memory – which looms large in the protagonist’s mind – and sometimes more subtly. (A theme can be included in a way that’s not super noticeable, but helps create a common feeling in related pieces of music.)

A memory turns bitter. From the soundtrack of the Lifetime movie Secrets Beneath the Floorboards. The expressive cello performance comes courtesy of Simone Vitucci.